The Colors Of A Optimistic World

Methods for a stronger inner balance: Relaxation techniques

There are many ways to achieve inner balance and these include various relaxation techniques. Not all of these techniques will suit you and that doesn't have to happen. It may be sufficient to integrate one or two of these techniques into your everyday life and thus ensure a little relaxation. During this time your body can break down the stress hormones released during the tension phase and take care of cell regeneration, metabolism and other vital physical processes.

This rest period is also optimal for your mind, because it gives you the opportunity to let negative thought patterns rest for a while, to recharge your batteries and to start the day refreshed. In our everyday life there are only few natural chances to retreat for a few minutes and therefore it is your task to take care of these little everyday breaks. It is important that you always do these relaxation sessions at the same time and in the same place so that a clear habit emerges and both your mind and your body connect with the time and place of this relaxing pause.

In the long run you will get better relaxation, which of course contributes greatly to the effectiveness of these relaxation exercises. After just a few weeks you will notice that these little everyday breaks will make you more energetic, calmer and more relaxed. However, it is important that they implement this new habit consistently, especially in the first 30 days, in order to really feel success. Your inner pig will try to dissuade you from your plan by all means, after all, the most diverse fears are strong allies of the inner pig. These methods will help you cultivate a more mindful approach to yourself.

All these relaxation techniques can be performed at home or in another undisturbed place. If you think that you need professional support in one place or another, you can join the appropriate groups!

Yoga Nidra

You have certainly heard of Yoga before, but have you also heard of Yoga Nidra? In Yoga Nidra you are both awake and asleep - the so-called yoga sleep. This state is optimal to replenish the exhausted reserves and to let the mind rest.

The word Nidra comes from the ancient Indian language Sanskrit and means sleep. However, this sleep does not mean sleep at night, but yoga sleep. In yoga sleep, your body is in deep relaxation while your senses are fully active and your mind is awake. The advantage of yoga sleep is that not only the physical energy is recharged, but above all the inner being comes to rest and can draw strength from this rest, which is not possible in this form during a normal night's sleep.

And so you can try Yoga Nidra at home:

- Lie down with comfortable clothing on a comfortable surface. You may need a small pillow, an eye mask and a light blanket.

- Then concentrate fully on your breath until your body and mind come into a relaxed state. You can always remember that you are relaxing now.

- As soon as you are relaxed, start walking through your body with your attention on your feet. Perceive each part of the body individually and consciously.

- Now you perceive your breath as it flows through your body and affects every part of your body. You will perceive tensions, pain and similar sensations - accept them as your current state.

- From time to time thoughts will come into your head, perceive them without judgement and let them go. At this moment you become an observer of yourself.

- Return to everyday life after 15 minutes by awakening each part of your body individually. On the Internet you will find great guided Yoga Nidra exercises that will help you get started in this practice.

Daily Movement

It is no longer a secret, but far too few people try to keep moving every day and this is one of the easiest ways to reduce stress and become more balanced. Of course, our survival has not depended on how fit our body is for many generations. The necessity to actually move daily is therefore not given. To relieve tension and stress, daily exercise is ideal, and if you haven't had any fun with exercise so far, it's simply because you haven't yet found the type of exercise that's right for you.

So make it your business to find a sporting activity that you also enjoy. Because if you have to struggle through a fitness program, you will quickly react with frustration and stress again. For example, if on some days you don't even know where to put all your accumulated energy, then spinning or martial arts might be the right choice for you. Or do you like the idea of jogging through the forest along a stream and showing constant stamina over a longer period of time? Still others can best switch off in team sports. If you lack the energy for all this, then meditative sports such as Qi Gong or Tai Chi are more suitable for you - try it out!

Sometimes it does not necessarily have to be a fixed sport, because our everyday life offers sufficient possibilities for physical activity. For example, you could ride your bicycle to work and leave your car behind, or you could play football with your children and not just sit on the bench.

Qi Gong

Qi Gong and Tai Chi are often confused. Qi Gong is about silence and the inner process, while Tai Chi is about the sequence of certain movements, which can range from fast and slow to acrobatic and explosive.

Qi Gong is all about re-establishing the connection between body and mind and strengthening self-awareness - ideal for re-introducing inner balance into one's own life. Qi Gong, which comes from China, is about working with the life energy: Qi is the life energy, gong is practice.

Through the regular Qi Gong practice you strengthen your immune system, your body, your mobility, increase your self-awareness and can relax comprehensively. This combines breathing, movement and meditation exercises that stimulate the life energy flowing in the body and break down blockages in it.

An exemplary exercise in Qi Gong to increase relaxation works as follows:

- Stand upright with your feet shoulderwide apart.

- Your arms hang loosely from your side of the body, your palms pointing backwards.

- Now imagine how your tailbone sinks downwards, as if it were pulled by a weight.

- Continue to stand upright and imagine yourself being pulled upwards from the vertex.

- Now walk with your attention from head to toe through your body and perceive the areas of tension.

- As soon as you are completely relaxed, you return to your everyday life with your attention.

Of course, the art of Qi Gong has many more practical exercises to help you restore your inner balance. In order to learn the movement sequences correctly, it is a good idea to attend a Qi Gong course.

Walks

Everybody should be able to integrate walks into everyday life, but they are still an effective means against stress. During a walk, all muscle groups, limbs and organs are evenly loaded. Walking is one of the most natural forms of human locomotion and therefore has no possibility of overloading individual areas of the body. Walking increases the oxygen supply to the body and improves blood circulation. This has a positive effect not only on our immune system, various inflammatory processes and the cardiovascular system, but also on our concentration, our performance and our mood. In addition, our muscles secrete the Interleukin-6 molecule during walks, which not only prevents premature ageing of the skin, but also stimulates fat burning and the supply of nutrients to the muscles.

But that's not all, because while walking the appetite-inhibiting hormone ghrelin is produced and the hormones serotonin and endorphin are released. This explains the positive effects on the body and mind. It is therefore advisable to spend about 30 minutes a day walking, ideally not along a busy road, but in a quiet, natural environment. When walking, stress hormones are broken down in the body and happiness hormones are increasingly released. The monotonous movement allows us to devote ourselves entirely to our thoughts and in doing so we actually encounter one or the other intuition in dealing with stressful situations!

Tai-Chi Chuan

Tai-Chi Chuan, Tai-Chi for short, is often practiced to reduce stress. You probably already have a picture of the meditative Tai Chi movements in your head. Even if the relaxation with Tai-Chi is actually only the way to spiritual awakening, courses of this sport are even taken over by health insurance companies, because the method is extremely effective against long-lasting stress states.

In Germany Tai-Chi is also often called "shadow boxing" and yes, shadow boxing belongs to the martial arts and is even the most frequently practiced martial art worldwide. The origin of Tai-Chi lies in China, where the martial art is practiced as a folk sport. And you too can experience inner balance with this martial art that has been tried and tested for centuries.

And so you can relax with Tai Chi at home:

- Put your feet about hip width apart.

- Let your arms hang down to the side of your body with your palms facing outwards.

- Raise and lower your arms a few times with palms facing upwards as you inhale and exhale.

- Now bring both palms together in front of your chest and draw a lying figure in front of you into the air with your hands lying next to each other.

This is a possible exercise as an introduction to the teachings of Tai Chi. You can move through the room in this way by stringing together certain sequences of movements. The slow and precise execution does not allow any stress and no hectic, here it is about precision and highest concentration. Practicing this physical and mental calm regularly helps you to take this balance with you into everyday life. On the Internet you will find many more suggestions and in every larger city you will find professional Tai Chi teachers who will introduce you to the art of Tai Chi.

Creativity

Creative living is a wonderful way to give room to accumulated emotions and to allow yourself a well-deserved break. Even if you are convinced at this point that you do not have any creative talent, you can still be creative. Because in each of us there is a more or less well hidden ability to be creative and to create something. In addition, this exercise is not about becoming the Rembrandt of the 21st century and presenting an impressive work to outside critics, but rather about giving free rein to hidden emotions through creative expression, i.e. communicating with oneself in an artistic way. It is up to you to decide how you want to be creative.

Perhaps you have always wanted to paint, are a good dancer or a writer. Especially if you've been under stress for a long time, it's hard to get creative. Creativity is something we can live out above all when we are in a relaxed state. The more often you sit in front of your screen or at the piano, the easier it will be for you to withdraw from everyday life and live out your artistic expression.

Creativity can be compared to a muscle that you have trained less or not at all over the last weeks, months and years. So the first training sessions will be exhausting, but the effort will be worth it because you will be rewarded with a wonderful opportunity to reduce and process stress. Reserve regular times in your diary, in which you can devote yourself entirely to the expression of your creativity. Be courageous and try out new possibilities of artistic design and expression!

Binaural Beats

Have you ever heard of Binaural Beats? Binaural betas are pieces of music with frequencies tuned to our brain waves. The brain waves that have been scientifically researched so far are the following:

- Delta waves with 1-3 Hz: These brain waves occur in deep sleep and in trance.

- Theta waves with 4-7 Hz: These brain waves arise during sleep and occur during deep meditative states.

- Alpha waves with 8-12 Hz: These brain waves occur in a relaxed state.

- Beta waves with 13- over 100 Hz: These brain waves indicate the awake state. Frequencies above 30Hz are associated with a wakeful state characterized by stress (positive and negative stress).

You can now imagine what kind of binaural beats are particularly helpful for relaxation: Binaural beats with alpha waves and 8-12 Hz. These tracks can be heard for free on YouTube, for example. While listening to these tracks, your brain is adjusted to the frequency of the track, making it easier for you to relax. So your brain starts to produce the same frequencies, which puts you in a relaxed state.

The Binaural Betas can be used at any time: Whether on the train, in a hot bath or meditating.

Mindfulness Meditation

Emotional outbursts occur in the brain region called the amygdala. Through increased attentiveness, we are able to strengthen another region of the brain, the prefrontal cortex. So we are moving away from a direct over-excited outburst of emotion towards a more attentive handling of our emotions. This does not mean that we suppress our emotions at this moment, but that we learn to deal with them differently. The prefrontal cortex is shut down by long-term stress because the prefrontal cortex is a fairly new brain area and in emergency situations the body reverts to the oldest brain areas. By strengthening the prefrontal cortex, you make it possible to perceive yourself more consciously and attentively.

Practice mindfulness meditation daily for at least 10 minutes and increase this time - some people meditate for two hours a day and you will soon understand why. Choose a quiet and undisturbed place for your meditation, wear comfortable clothes, sit cross-legged on the floor, put your hands loosely on your knees, close your eyes, and then begin the following meditation:

- The next time you exhale, gradually relax your body: head, face, jaw, shoulders, trunk, arms, hands, legs and feet.

- Then concentrate on your breathing for ten minutes without affecting it.

- Pay attention to the changes that occur in your body when you breathe: The chest, for example, lifts and lowers.

- Feel how each breath provides you with energy.

- Surely one or two thoughts will flow through your head. If you perceive them, do not evaluate them and always return to your breathing.

- At the end of this meditation exercise, try to feel how your body and mind have calmed down. - Open your eyes and slowly return to your everyday life with your consciousness.

The more often you do this exercise, the easier it will be for you to quickly get into a relaxed state and maintain it for the entire period of meditation. Your body and mind have had the opportunity to step out of the state of tension and you can devote yourself more attentively to your everyday life.

Progressive muscle relaxation

The progressive muscle relaxation has a lot to do with the alternation between tension and relaxation and even more with the ability to let go. Learning to let go is an important instrument for all those whose thoughts are often in the past and the future, but rarely in the here and now. Of course it is important to think about the future or to rethink past experiences, but only as long as these thoughts add value to our present. Maybe you just can't let go of the idea of a missed deadline and are therefore afraid of tackling new, interesting and exciting projects with a short deadline. Letting go of stress is learnable.

The progressive muscle relaxation can be done in peace at home or in the middle of nature - exactly where you need it and where you like it. Ideally, you should lie on a comfortable surface throughout the exercise, your arms lying loosely next to your body and your feet falling slightly outwards. The palms of your hands are down, your eyes are closed and your jaw is relaxed. Here we go:

- Breathe in and out deeply a few times.

- Watch carefully as your breathing supplies you with energy and spreads throughout your body.

- Now it starts with the tension and relaxation of the different muscle groups! Bend your arms, clench your hands into fists and now actively tighten your arms, hands and shoulders for about 7 seconds. When exhaling after 7 seconds you put your arms down again, relax and feel the heaviness and warmth of your arms and hands.

- Then it continues with the facial and neck muscles, the chest, abdominal and back muscles, as well as the foot and leg muscles.

- Once you have tensed all the muscles in your body, you can feel the relaxation spreading across your entire body.

- After a few minutes, open your eyes and return to everyday life with your attention. Perform this relaxation exercise daily to feel the calming effect on your body deeply and for a long time!

Showing humour and rediscovering your own laughter

You may not feel like laughing at the moment, but laughing is actually a great way to release tension and focus on what matters most. Laughter not only activates hundreds of muscles throughout the body, but also releases large amounts of the happiness hormones dopamine, serotonin and endorphin. Against this combination stress hormones naturally have no more chance and are reduced. When was the last time you laughed heartily and do you remember how relaxed, balanced and liberated you felt afterwards?

With increasing stress level also the daily laughter sinks. And if you think that you have forgotten to laugh over time, then I have good news for you: humour is learnable. Is there a better way to restore inner balance than to laugh heartily? From now on, go through your everyday life more open to humour and look for funny situations. What about your social environment, which people have a lot of humour there and make you laugh frequently? Surround yourself more often with funny, cheerful people! And of course you can go to cabaret, watch comedies or read humorous books.

There are many ways to make life a little easier and more relaxed, even if it doesn't work overnight. What kind of humor do you have and how can you make yourself laugh at least once a day? Life is only as serious as we take it. And by the way: humor not only makes us sexy, it also strengthens our immune system, improves our cognitive abilities, is a sign of intelligence, activates various brain areas and can even make us high!

Methods for a stronger inner balance: Reflection

Reflection teaches us an incredible amount about ourselves and gives us the opportunity to deal with ourselves, with challenges and with our fellow human beings in a more positive way. For example, we recognize negative emotions and no longer take them as an opportunity to make hasty, supposedly redeeming decisions. So our decision making becomes much more effective!

Also, by observing our own behaviour in conflict situations, we can react more calmly and strive to resolve the conflict instead of showing selfish behaviour (blame attribution). Conflicts, failures or mistakes then no longer become nightmares, but learning opportunities for which we do not have to condemn ourselves at all. Even self- pity does not find a place any more with an attentive contemplation of one's own person, because we can accept our fate as it is.

So in the future you can put your energy into optimising your abilities instead of letting your dissatisfaction, stress and anger evaporate. The better we know ourselves, the better we can set better priorities and healthier boundaries, identify our own goals and make positive changes with motivation and confidence.

Reflection can have very different faces. While one prefers to move to a monastery for a week, the other practices daily self-reflection through evening evaluation. In this chapter you will find some suggestions that will hopefully help you to find the right kind of reflection for you and make it part of your life.

Increase Self-Esteem

Increasing self-esteem is enormously important for restoring inner balance. What's the matter with you? Because we will only take healthy measures if we are actually worth it. Are you important enough to yourself to make changes for more relaxation and balance in your life, even if this may mean outside criticism? Our self-esteem is our best friend, because only through a healthy self-esteem we are motivated to make healthy decisions and to trust ourselves with them.

The cause of low self-esteem is often childhood. Not all people were allowed to experience through their parents how important, loving and strong they are. But don't worry, you can catch up at any time. Instead of often reproaching your own weaknesses and making them your personal flagship and comparing yourself with supposedly unattainable idols, you should treat yourself with a lot of love, respect and patience. This includes accepting external compliments, praising oneself regularly for success and progress, and not comparing oneself with other people. Other people are not in your situation and simply have different prerequisites. Two lives cannot be compared. It's better to compare yourself with yourself and see your progress!

In order to silence the inner critic, you should take a little time every day to play through critically judged behaviors again and to consider alternative behaviors. The neighbour treated you again unbelievably disrespectful, because your shopping basket stood in the stairwell for a few seconds? Have you been able to defend yourself self-confidently and self-confidently or have the words got stuck in your throat? Then consider for such situations how to put an end to these unsightly encounters the next time respectfully, clearly and unambiguously.

Finding acceptance and perceiving the feedback

Accept your current situation, your feelings and also your physical condition. That sound funny to you? Accepting the current situation is nevertheless a logical and important step. What triggers it in you if you don't want to accept a fact? Most likely tension! And tension is a clear messenger of impending stress, because at that very moment you have made a negative judgement about a condition. You already know that your personal attitude to the circumstances controls your emotions regarding this condition.

So it is not surprising if you get into unnecessary and additional stress due to the lack of acceptance of your situation. I'm not saying that you should suddenly love your back pain or consider your current situation perfect, but I'm simply recommending that you see the situation for what it is: a changeable condition. So you have the possibility to perceive your feelings and your physical signals exactly and to accept them without judgement. You may perceive all your negative emotions and also the physical consequences of long-term stress and imbalance exactly as such messages. The moment you perceive your emotional and physical feedback without judgment, you have made a great step! You have, so to speak, carried out an inventory or an inventory of your situation and can initiate optimizing steps based on this.

Not everyone is able to practice self-acceptance right away. It may be helpful if you take at least 15 minutes a day to take stock. You write down which aspects of your current situation you do not want to accept and then try to accept exactly these aspects as an expression of a changeable state: "I accept that I am very irritable at the moment. This is an expression of a momentary overload." You will quickly notice that you will move away from critical thinking about yourself and your situation to a focused problem-solving attitude!

Practice a positive attitude - Look at things from a different angle

It is often not the situations themselves that put us under stress, but our assessment of the situation. So to consider a positive attitude towards stressful situations, i.e. to look at the situation from a completely new perspective, can actually reduce the pressure and stress. And even if at first it may sound as if you are lying to yourself, this new optimism will soon become a happy habit of an attentive and balanced attitude. From now on, devote at least 15 minutes a day to finding out how to redefine and evaluate stressful situations.

Here is an example: The conflict-laden relationship with the neighbours was previously a reason to lapse into a tense state. In other words, the conflict-laden relationship with the neighbours could be a wonderful occasion for spatial change, for a new beginning or for learning a wide variety of conflict management techniques. Even the queue at the supermarket checkout does not necessarily have to be evaluated negatively. This can also be a good way to write a short, nice message to your best friend, download an interesting book to your smartphone or talk to people around you.

During your daily reflection you write down which situations have caused stress in you. In a second step, try to look at the situation as objectively as possible. A defective car is a defective car and does not have to become a medium-sized family drama. What alternative perspectives could you throw at this situation? Does the situation that triggers the stress possibly also have its advantages or does it even offer opportunities for further development? The more impersonal you look at a particular situation, the more likely you are to change your perspective on the situation and see the positive aspects of it all.

Abandoning self-pity and the role of victim

Bathing in self-pity and surrendering to the role of victim is not difficult at all. And sometimes it does us good, because it gives us an extra motivation kick to develop ourselves further in life and to dare new things. So self- pity can have its good sides, as long as we don't sink completely into it. Life doesn't always run in perfect tracks, but often gives us the opportunity to make another real effort. If self-pity becomes a habit, however, then there is not much to feel of the healing effect and we drift off into a kind of victim role. This means that we no longer take responsibility for our current situation, but feel helpless, ignored, excluded and worthless. That's the opposite of self-confidence.

In the long run, this can lead to listlessness and even depression. As soon as we feel comfortable in the victim role, we hand over the responsibility. After all, the perpetrators, the others who are doing well, are the culprits and life itself has played unfair cards to you. Then it is high time to take responsibility for your own situation again and ask yourself: How could it have come to this? What have I contributed to this situation? And how can I avoid such events in the future? To work oneself out of the victim role means to practice oneself in self-reflection and relentless honesty towards oneself. So, if you show more self-pity than compassion for yourself, it's time to keep a record of the most common self-pity scenarios and the corresponding research to break down these long- established structures.

Keep a stress log

Keeping a stress log can help determine the actual causes of the stress response. Many people overlook the signs of a stress response, but this is exactly when an intervention could take place. So take at least a week to observe yourself closely. Pay attention to the following points:

- What are the signs of an impending stress response?

- What physical and psychological symptoms of stress can I perceive in myself?

- When do I react stressed

- What thoughts do I have in this stressful situation?

- Where does the pressure that leads to the stress reaction come from? External or internal factors (external circumstances or expectations of yourself)?

- How do I deal with the stress?

You will use this protocol to quickly find out in which situations you feel stressed, how the stress normally manifests itself, and how you usually deal with that stress. This helps you not only to recognize approaching stress situations in the future, but also to steer your behavior more attentively. A further step, after recognizing individual behavior patterns, is the rethinking. Some of the methods presented in this book will help you create a new perspective on immutable situations. In addition, you can consider which reaction you can use to make stressful situations less stressful.

The stress protocol, for example, has shown that you are always particularly irritated at lunchtime. This may be due to a lack of morning snack and a short break at the beginning of the lunch break. And instead of talking to the belligerent colleague at lunchtime, you could politely make her understand that at a later stage you are willing to resolve possible conflicts. Fixed behaviors are not always immediately recognizable, which is why a stress protocol can be a strong help to show these unconscious and almost intuitive behaviors.

Gratitude and pleasure

We are often so tense that we mostly forget to be grateful and enjoy, but these are exactly two attitudes that enrich our lives unbelievably. Maybe you've had the same experience before: They rush from one appointment to the next and therefore have no time to enjoy the wonderful weather or the grandiose food. The more we are under stress and put ourselves under pressure, the less time we take to enjoy and be grateful for the little things in life that make life so worth living.